


Thoughts on Earl

by FaintingInCoils



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Nostalgia, Star-crossed love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintingInCoils/pseuds/FaintingInCoils
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A beautiful man with perfect hair has moved to Night Vale and caught Cecil's eye...  But Cecil can't help but think back to a love from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thoughts on Earl

“It’s settling in to be another clear night and pretty evening here in Night Vale. I hope all of you out there have someone to sleep through it with… Or, at least, good memories of when you did. Goodnight, listeners, goodnight.”

Cecil starts the familiar strains of his program’s ending melody, makes sure he’s cut his mic, and sighs. He gathers his papers and his coffee mug to make room for the next on-air personality to take over the station. (He could leave this task to the interns, of course, but that would border on rude, which he tries not to be. And more importantly, how can he be comfortable banking on the idea that there will be an intern—ready, willing, and physically mental able—to perform such menial tasks each night? Better not to risk it, really.)

Cecil rinses his coffee mug in the break room, puts it back on his personal shelf in the cabinet next to the sink. He turns to look out across the expanse of the abnormally—perhaps even impossibly— large room. Lets his gaze roll over all the plain, small gravestones bearing the names of interns past, but doesn't read the words on any of them. Sighs again, loudly.

Someone to sleep through the night with, indeed… A luxury he himself has gone without for several long, though not unusually lonely or depressing, years now. Not since he swore off the handsome young interns with their vexing tendency to die young. No, not since…

Cecil pushes the thought aside and leaves the radio station. He stops by Big Rico’s for a late-night slice of anchovy and pickled cactus pizza before making the drive home. He sets his cruise control to a speed that closely matches the mysterious lights moving overhead, ignores anything on the road that could possibly be a ghost car. Traffic is always slow this time of night. There’s not much chance of an accident on the road (or at least, not the sort of accident he’d have any hope of preventing) so he lets his mind drift for a moment. Drift past Carlos (beautiful Carlos!), past those few lovely interns…

And back to Earl Harlan. Earl Harlan and his Boy Scout leader uniform with the oh-so-wonderful neckerchief, and his noble, heartfelt dedication to the boys of Night Vale, especially those lucky—or unlucky—enough to be randomly chosen to become Boy Scouts, just as he had once been chosen.

Earl Harlan with the goofy smile, the constantly mussed red hair, and the frequent, horrible sunburns that inevitably occurred when a man with skin as pale as moonlight was forced to endure the sunny great outdoors, especially when he hated the smell of sunblock.

Earl Harlan, who had kissed him at the radio station one night when he was visiting with supper and the lights went out; on the curb in front of Cecil’s apartment building; in the front row of the movie theater while the ending credits to a long-since-forgotten movie scrolled across the huge silver screen.

Earl Harlan, who could not possibly risk his position as a Scout Leader without also risking his own well-being, his own life. Earl Harlan, who had tears in his eyes during their last kiss, and who had given Cecil dozens of beautiful pressed flowers and pinned butterflies before he finally left for good, his back hunched and his head bowed low.

Earl Harlan, who sometimes called the radio station to deliver Boy Scout news and announcements that he could just as easily have sent an e-mail about, and whose voice hitched every single time.

Earl Harlan, who was not so beautiful as the town’s newest resident, Carlos… But who seemed to still hold a part of Cecil’s heart all the same.

Cecil reaches his apartment at last and shakes his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. He wipes the hints of tears from his eyes, locks his car, heads inside. He gets undressed. Lies down in bed with a bowl of veal ice cream and a stubborn refusal to dwell on the past any longer.

Cecil makes himself think of hair that is long and dark and perfect… except that it is not the color of flames, and he has never felt it slide smoothly between his fingers.

He thinks of skin that is dark as coffee-flavored caramels, not milky white.

He thinks of two faces, then. So different in so many ways, but both with a scattering of freckles across the nose and cheeks.

Cecil closes his eyes tightly before these newest tears can find their way out. His fingers lose their strength all at once, and the half-eaten bowl of ice cream falls to the bed, bounces to the floor, unnoticed and uncared for.

Cecil can relate to the ice cream all too well.


End file.
